“Jodi lived her life as an optimist,” her family said in a statement that marked the tragic date, Per Findjodi“And she had a great passion for living life to the fullest. She was a bright light that made her better just by being in it. Her kindness and heart was unmatched, and she had an innate ability to get those she met to feel, heard and valued. She had such a bright future ahead, and she should be here now.”
The family also expressed distrust that she had been away for so long and noted that it had been three decades of “pure anxiety and torture that handled the loss of our Jodi and tried to find answers to what happened to her 30 years ago today.”
But so far the truth has remained out of reach.
“They use that word closure a lot,” Merbach, the news director who hired Huisentruit, told Omaha’s Wowt-TV In 2015. “For Jodi’s family I don’t think there is such a thing after having a wound parties for 20 years – how do you immediately close it? Where I work in Mason City now – from my office – I can see the tree that we planted for Jodi. It is a reminder to me every day of what happened 20 years ago. It is still very close.
Even outside the station and praises Huisentruit: a stone marker engraved with a golf ball and a TV camera.
(Originally published December 22, 2018, at 3 pt at 3 pt)
